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does hide his correspondence with women from me,” she thought.
“Yashvin meant to come this morning with Voytov,” said Vronsky;
“I believe he’s won from Pyevtsov all and more than he can pay, about
sixty thousand.”
“No,” she said, irritated by his so obviously showing by this change
of subject that he was irritated, “why did you suppose that this news
would affect me so, that you must even try to hide it? I said I don’t want
to consider it, and I should have liked you to care as little about it as I
do.”
“I care about it because I like definiteness,” he said.
“Definiteness is not in the form but the love,” she said, more and
more irritated, not by his words, but by the tone of cool composure in
which he spoke. “What do you want it for?”
“My God! love again,” he thought, frowning.
“Oh, you know what for; for your sake and your children’s in the
future.”
“There won’t be children in the future.”
“That’s a great pity,” he said.
“You want it for the children’s sake, but you don’t think of me?” she
said, quite forgetting or not having heard that he had said, “for your
sake and the children’s.”
The question of the possibility of having children had long been a
subject of dispute and irritation to her. His desire to have children she
interpreted as a proof he did not prize her beauty.
“Oh, I said: for your sake. Above all for your sake,” he repeated,
frowning as though in pain, “because I am certain that the greater part
of your irritability comes from the indefiniteness of the position.”
“Yes, now he has laid aside all pretense, and all his cold hatred for
me is apparent,” she thought, not hearing his words, but watching with
terror the cold, cruel judge who looked mocking her out of his eyes.
“The cause is not that,” she said, “and, indeed, I don’t see how the
cause of my irritability, as you call it, can be that I am completely in your
power. What indefiniteness is there in the position? on the contrary...”
“I am very sorry that you don’t care to understand,” he interrupted,
obstinately anxious to give utterance to his thought. “The indefinite-
ness consists in your imagining that I am free.”
“On that score you can set your mind quite at rest,” she said, and
turning away from him, she began drinking her coffee.
She lifted her cup, with her little finger held apart, and put it to her
lips. After drinking a few sips she glanced at him, and by his expres-
sion, she saw clearly that he was repelled by her hand, and her gesture,
and the sound made by her lips.
“I don’t care in the least what your mother thinks, and what match
she wants to make for you,” she said, putting the cup down with a
shaking hand.
“But we are not talking about that.”
“Yes, that’s just what we are talking about. And let me tell you that
a heartless woman, whether she’s old or not old, your mother or anyone
else, is of no consequence to me, and I would not consent to know her.”
“Anna, I beg you not to speak disrespectfully of my mother.”
“A woman whose heart does not tell her where her son’s happiness
and honor lie has no heart.”
“I repeat my request that you will not speak disrespectfully of my
mother, whom I respect,” he said, raising his voice and looking sternly
at her
She did not answer. Looking intently at him, at his face, his hands,
she recalled all the details of their reconciliation the previous day, and
his passionate caresses. “There, just such caresses he has lavished,